Organizational attractiveness for prospective applicants: A person-organisation fit perspective

This study investigates which of four objective organisational characterist ics determine the attractiveness of organisations for prospective applicant s and the degree to which the Big Five personality factors moderate the eff ects of some of these organisational attributes. To this end, 359 final-yea r students (engineering and business majors, 71% men, mean age = 22.4 years ) read short descriptions of organisations. These descriptions varied on fo ur organisational characteristics (i.e. organisation size, level of interna tionalisation, pay mix, and level of centralisation). The students had to i ndicate their attraction to the organisation. Additionally, they provided s elf-ratings on a personality inventory. The results show that prospective a pplicants are more attracted to large-sized, medium-sized, decentralised, a nd multinational organisations. Next, the results indicate that several per sonality characteristics moderate the effects of organisational characteris tics on attractiveness. For instance, the factor conscientiousness moderate s the effect of organisational size, with subjects high on conscientiousnes s being more attracted to large-sized organisations. The factor openness/in tellect moderates the effect of internationalisation, with subjects high on openness/intellect being more attracted to multinational organisations.